The Foxholes 2020
Konzert
They push through, they come out: a small ensemble from Barcelona eventually deliver a live album.
It took them a long, long time yet, one decade down the line from this little combo’s full-length debut, arrives a document of THE FOXHOLES’ concert experience. Bringing to the audience most of 2016’s “Un Mal Menor” – that harked back to the band’s beginning in terms of material – and "Sci-Fox" from the following year, the Catalan collective effectively revise what looked like very cultured, refined performances on earlier records and emerge as a wonderfully wild bunch. It’s dirty and tasty – and triumphant, too.
They make an awful lot of sweet noise for a trio, opener “Tu Realidad” not only bristling with guitar filigree and bass swells but also offering sweet six-string harmonies to take its tune to the skies. As a result, there’s a layer of punk defiance where prog used to be, so the artsy moments of “Tiny Speck” create a nice contrast to the piece’s heavy sway. This previously unseen panache leads to “Goldminer Song” bursting at the seams, since the singer Jonah A. Luke’s riffs are both alluring and alienating, and the cut’s sonic sparseness is arresting to say the least.
As Ángel Millán’s drums drive the jagged edge of “La Ciencia de la Confusión” to where Mojo Moritz’s spank fuels the melody, it’s difficult to escape the little ensemble’s on-stage pull that, perceived firsthand, must be truly spectacular, once the fervent, cymbals-caressed swirl behind “Tierra ni Hogar” turned into belligerent sway. And while “Invader Proxy” is rocking and rolling with much gusto, and an ABBA quote to boot, the Spanish tension of “Mephistopheles” has seriousness written all over the number’s surface – the quasi-orchestral expanse quite uncharacteristic for such a line-up.
If this is new direction for the trio, it’s an interesting twist; if this is a simple deviation, it’s a devilish trick. Whatever it is, “Konzert” was worth the ten-years’ wait.
****2/3
